Tuesday, September 9, 2008

TO MY FUTURE MOMMY FRIENDS

Ladies,

As many of you know, I became an official mother on August 27, 2008 at 12:06am. Since that day, I started a journey. This journey is one of insecurity, but also tenacity to do whatever I have to do for this child.

It seems like I am one of the first of MANY in a row to have a baby. Truthfully, I have never known more pregnant people in my whole life. I have a friend or two (or three) having a baby every month from now until February. One of the most helpful and encouraging things to me since bringing home Davie has been online forums. When I was feeling SO discouraged about breastfeeding or my "new life", it was so lovely to go find other new moms who are dealing with or have dealt with the same thing. It got me to thinking about all of you. How could we help each other out on our journeys?

So I wanted to try setting up our own sort of "forum", where we can ask questions, tell our stories, voice our frustrations, etc. I've had some GREAT conversations with some of you about pregnancy, labor, and the first days home from the hospital. I hope we can make these conversations more public for my many round-bellied friends. So, any topics you want to discuss with the group, post them!

Baby Wise was the only book recommended to Andy and I by multiple people...We haven't started the process yet because we are still in the first week.

We did have a trying day yesterday. My milk still hadn't come in, so the baby wasn't getting a lot of liquid. The nurse at the hospital told us before leaving that we needed to take her back to the hospital if she didn't have at least one poopy diaper and 3 wet diapers in one day...so when she hadn't pooped or peed in 32 hours we were stressed. Andy was very upset and ready to switch to formula....he cried even. So by 6 pm yesterday we were both stressed. We called the hospital and they said if she didn't pee by 9:00 the next day to take her in.

It turns out that Andy didn't know what colostrum was. So, I expressed some with the pump fed Ramey, read him the sections on colostrum from What to Expect When Your Expecting, and removed her diaper so we would know for sure if she peed. He felt much better after that.

Three hours later I was holding Ramey sitting next to Andy and she had a Gigantic pee. both of our pants and her blanket were soaked. We were really happy to be peed on!...Today she won't stop pooping...and we are really happy to be pooped on too!